Shatter
by vampirepenguin
Summary: In which Kakashi dies, and there are consequences. [implied KakashiIruka, Irukacentric with side of Team Seven]


**AN:** No real excuse for this one, except that it was another drive-by plot-bunnying, and I am almost entirely incapable of writing normal pairings-fic. This contains implied Kakashi/Iruka, which means slash, which means if this ain't your cuppa, scram. Asshats will be laughed at. 

This is AU, diverging shortly after the Fifth arrives.

* * *

They are expecting him to shatter.

Expecting him to break, to sob, to stop _going_.

Iruka smiles at them, faintly apologetic. He can't break, not now, not when he has so much to do.

They know, of course. It doesn't surprise him. He had never been very good at hiding his feelings, after all, and what they couldn't tell from Kakashi's typical demeanor must have been written all over his own.

The funeral is well-attended. Iruka isn't surprised. It's not just for Kakashi, after all, although he can't help but feel that it is.

Something wells up in his chest and he strangles it mercilessly, stuffing it deep down in his stomach where it makes him feel slightly queasy. Oddly fitting, he thinks, and squeezes Naruto's shoulder.

The next day, he arrives at school his usual precise half-hour early. The parents give him strange looks, half-pitying, half something Iruka can't read. He ducks his head a little, admonishes little Midoriko to slow down before she trips over her own too-long scarf.

Normal. He takes refuge in normality.

Iruka goes home and spends the evening grading papers. He doesn't rush or dawdle, moving through them methodically, red pen at the ready. And when he is finished, he carefully stacks them on his desk, caps the pen.

He's ready for it, then, curling up on the bed, wrapping the blanket around him, staring blindly at the moon outside his window, waiting to shatter, to break down.

"Dead," he says out loud.

The word sounds flat, unreal.

Iruka lies there for a long time and wonders why he won't break. It feels strange—he remembers when his parents died, he had cried when he was alone. When his teammates died, he'd gone looking for revenge.

Now he just feels…strange.

There is no revenge this time, he thinks. The men that killed Kakashi are dead with him, and the thought of more death just makes his stomach hurt worse. No refuge to be found in tears either, apparently.

He has a class to teach tomorrow, so he rolls over, moonlight to his back, and goes to sleep. If he dreams, he doesn't remember it in the morning, and is left feeling tired and empty.

He can't let himself break, no matter how brittle he feels, because he's still needed.

Iruka has never seen Naruto cry before, and is glad for the boy, that he's able to get it all out in one sitting, yelling and weeping and finally falling into an exhausted sleep, Iruka's arm firmly in his grasp.

_You won't leave me too, will you?_ he had asked, voice thick and soggy.

Iruka runs his fingers absently through that yellow hair and wonders if it would be crueler to make a promise he knows he won't be able to keep or to tell the boy the truth. Selfishly, he hopes that he will die before Naruto.

It's the statistic likelihood, after all.

Sakura is next, and for once, she doesn't weep. She's bewildered, just a kid, a ninja surrounded by death. Iruka has always been saddened by the dichotomy.

_Why,_ she asked, and Iruka can only shake his head silently. He has no words of wisdom for her, nothing to help this time.

He is thankful that the school year is winding to its inevitable close. He feels so tired these days, tired and empty, and he knows why. He thinks if he were able to let himself shatter, he might be able to pick up the pieces and move on. But he can't.

Team Seven is taken off the active duty roster, and Iruka can't contest the decision. Naruto goes from unnaturally quiet to even louder than usual and back again. Sakura's brow is always furrowed in thought, now, and she seems listless. No one's heard Sasuke say more than two words since Kakashi's death.

Iruka watches them, keeps an eye on them when he can.

He will have to have a long talk with whoever their next sensei is, he thinks, and makes idle notes in the margins of his lesson plans as he watches them go through the motions of practice-sparring.

They are brittle, he thinks, and will shatter soon. He hopes the Fifth finds them a jounin-sensei who will understand this.

He finds irony in this, a few weeks later, as he's conducting the genin exams, working out lists of potential teams with the Hokage-sama.

She asks him if he's ever thought of taking a team of his own.

He blinks and replies no, of course not. He's not a jounin, after all.

She gives him a meaningful look. _That can be changed,_ she says.

He smiles, shakes his head. He's content with the job he has now, he tells her, and it's mostly truth.

_Not even for Naruto?_ she asks.

And there's a moment where he's silent. Then he laughs a little, because it's such an obvious solution.

The exams are over, the rookie genins assigned to squad and jounin. Iruka turns in all the appropriate paperwork, neatly marked and signed.

Then he hands in his resignation as Academy teacher and signs himself up for the jounin test.

* * *

**Endnotes:** Er. Not an awful lot to say about this. It was originally a request for Kakashi/Iruka, from doramajoo on LJ, but it mutated. Dreadfully. 


End file.
